As a teenager, DeVille played with friends from Stamford in a blues band called Billy & the Kids, and later in another band called The Immaculate Conception. At age 17, he married Susan Berle, also known as Toots. DeVille struck out in 1971 for London in search of like-minded musicians ("obvious American with my
pompadour hair"), but was unsuccessful finding them; he returned to New York City after a two-year absence.), was not a success either. Said DeVille: "I decided to go to San Francisco; there was nothing really happening in New York.
Flower power was dead. All the
day-glo paint was peeling off the walls. People were shooting
speed. I mean, it was real
Night of the Living Dead. So I bought a truck and headed out west. I traveled all around the country for a couple of years, looking for musicians who had heart, instead of playing 20-minute guitar solos, which is pure ego."
The Mink DeVille years By 1974 Willy DeVille (under the name Billy Borsay) was singing in a band with drummer Thomas R. "Manfred" Allen, Jr., bassist Rubén Sigüenza, guitarist Robert McKenzie (a.k.a. Fast Floyd), and Ritch Colbert on keyboards. The band called themselves Billy de Sade and the Marquis, but changed the name to Mink DeVille the year after; at the same time lead singer Borsay adapted the name Willy DeVille. The same year, DeVille persuaded the band members to try their luck in New York City after spotting an ad in
The Village Voice inviting bands to audition. Guitarist Fast Floyd and keyboard player Ritch Colbert stayed behind in San Francisco (Colbert would shortly head to NY to join the band), and after arriving in New York, the band hired guitarist
Louis X. Erlanger, whose
blues sensibilities helped shape the Mink DeVille sound. During three years, from 1975 to 1977, Mink DeVille was one of the original
house bands at
CBGB, the New York nightclub where
punk rock music was played in mid-1970s. Edmonds paired Mink DeVille with producer
Jack Nitzsche who had apprenticed under
Phil Spector and helped shape the
Wall of Sound production technique. Assisted by saxophonist
Steve Douglas and
a cappella singers the Immortals they recorded the band's debut album
Cabretta (simply called
Mink DeVille in the U.S.) in January 1976.
Cabretta, a multifaceted album of
soul,
R&B,
rock, and blues recordings, was selected number 57 in the
Village Voices 1977
Pazz & Jop critics poll. Its
lead single "
Spanish Stroll" reached number 20 on the
UK Singles Chart, the only Willy DeVille recording to ever hit the charts in the United Kingdom. The band's follow-up album,
Return to Magenta (1978), continued in the same vein as
Cabretta, except that Willy DeVille and producers Nitzsche and Steve Douglas employed string arrangements on several songs. On this album
Dr. John played keyboards and, once again, Douglas played saxophone. To promote the album, Mink DeVille toured the United States in 1978 with
Elvis Costello and
Nick Lowe.
Return to Magenta reached number 126 on the
Billboard 200, making it Willy DeVille's highest charting album ever in his home country. In 1979, Willy DeVille took his band in a new direction and recorded an album in Paris called
Le Chat Bleu. For the album, DeVille wrote several songs with
Doc Pomus who had previously seen the band play in New York City. DeVille hired
Jean Claude Petit to supervise
string arrangements, and he dismissed the members of the band except for guitarist Louis X. Erlanger in favor of new musicians:
Accordionist Kenny Margolis,
Jerry Scheff (bass), Ron Tutt (drums) and, once again, Steve Douglas (saxophone), who also served as producer. Capitol Records was not happy with
Le Chat Bleu, believing that American audiences were incapable of listening to songs with accordions and lavish string arrangements; consequently they initially released the album only in Europe, in 1980. However, the album sold impressively in America as an import and Capitol finally released it in the United States later the same year. Ironically,
Rolling Stone yearly critic's poll ranked
Le Chat Bleu the fifth best album of 1980, and music historian
Glenn A. Baker declared it the tenth best rock album of all time. By this time no members of the original Mink DeVille save Willy DeVille remained in the band, but DeVille continued recording and touring under the name Mink DeVille. He then recorded two albums for
Atlantic Records, 1981's
Coup de Grâce—on which Jack Nitzsche returned as producer—and 1983's
Where Angels Fear to Tread. Both sold well in Europe but fared less well in the United States.
Coup de Grâce was DeVille's last album ever to enter the Billboard 200, peaking at number 161. Mink DeVille's last album, ''
Sportin' Life,
was recorded for Polydor in 1985. For this album, DeVille penned two more songs with Doc Pomus. The album was recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and DeVille and Duncan Cameron producing. The album was a hit in some European countries, entering the top 20 in Switzerland and Sweden. In 1986, DeVille filed for bankruptcy as part of what Billboard'' called "a major restructuring of his career". He fired his personal manager, Michael Barnett, and announced that he would "put Mink DeVille to bed" and start a solo career. Consequently, Mink DeVille played its last concert on February 20, 1986 in New York City.
"Storybook Love" collaboration with Mark Knopfler Although Willy DeVille had been recording and touring for ten years under the name
Mink DeVille, no members of his original band had recorded or toured with him since 1980's
Le Chat Bleu. Beginning in 1987 with the album
Miracle, DeVille began recording and touring under his own name. He told an interviewer, "Ten years with the band was enough for Mink DeVille; everyone was calling me 'Mink.' I thought it was about time to get the name straight." DeVille recorded
Miracle in London with
Mark Knopfler serving as his
sideman and producer. He said, "It was Mark (Knopfler's) wife Lourdes who came up with the idea (to record
Miracle). She said to him that you don't sing like Willy and he doesn't play guitar like you, but you really like his stuff so why don't you do an album together?" "
Storybook Love", a song from
Miracle and the
theme song of the movie
The Princess Bride, was nominated for an
Academy Award in 1987; DeVille performed the song at that year's
Academy Awards telecast. Knopfler heard ("Storybook Love") and asked if I knew about this movie he was doing. It was a
Rob Reiner film about a princess and a prince. The song was about the same subject matter as the film, so we submitted it to Reiner and he loved it. About six or seven months later, I was half asleep when the phone rang. It was the
Academy of Arts and Sciences with the whole spiel. I hung up on them! They called back and Lisa (his wife) answered the phone. She came in to tell me that I was nominated for "Storybook Love." It's pretty wild. It's not the
Grammys — it's the Academy Awards, which is different for a musician. Before I knew it, I was performing on the awards show with
Little Richard. It was the year of
Dirty Dancing, and they won.
In New Orleans In 1988, DeVille relocated from New York City to
New Orleans, where he found a spiritual home. "I was stunned", he said in a 1993 interview. "I had the feeling that I was going back home. It was very strange ... I live in the
French Quarter, two streets away from
Bourbon Street; at night, when I go to bed, I hear the
boogie that comes from the streets, and in the morning, when I wake up, I hear the
blues." In 1990, DeVille made
Victory Mixture, a
tribute album of classic New Orleans
soul and
R&B which he recorded with some of the songs' original composers. The album was recorded without the use of
overdubbing or sound editing with the goal of capturing the spirit of the original recordings. I got all the original guys to come back in, like
Earl King,
Dr. John and
Eddie Bo.
Allen Toussaint played side piano. I brought in the rhythm section of
The Meters on a couple of cuts. We call it the "little" record. It's funny, because I was just trying to get them money, the writers of the songs, 'cause they all got ripped off in the 1950s and 1960s. They were all fascinated, and Dr. John (who had played on DeVille's 1978 album
Return to Magenta and who DeVille knew from his association with
Doc Pomus) convinced them that they wouldn't get ripped off by this northern white boy. That's when I crossed over to being a local here in New Orleans. We were all pleased with it. It's recorded the way it was originally done back then. It's live with no overdubs anywhere, no digital, no editing. We played the song several times and just picked the best take, the one that was the most natural. It's on Fnac/Orleans Records. I'm really proud of that one. In the summer of 1992, DeVille toured Europe with Dr John, Johnny Adams,
Zachary Richard, and
The Wild Magnolias as part of his "New Orleans Revue" tour. "The travel, buses, and planes and the accommodations had to be some of the worst I've ever experienced ... but the shows themselves were great. At the end of each show we'd throw
Mardi Gras throws out to the audience, you know strands of purple and gold beads, and they'd never seen anything like it and they loved it."
Recording in Los Angeles In 1992, DeVille recorded
Backstreets of Desire, the first of four albums he would record in Los Angeles with producer
John Philip Shenale. "I say it every time I record in L.A. — that I'll never do it again, and I keep doing it ... It's crazy. I just record and go to the hotel, and never go out, then back to the studio. I hate L.A. It's the worst. I think they eat their children there. I never saw any kids. It's a pity there aren't more studios in
New Orleans."
Backstreets of Desire included a novel
mariachi version of the
Jimi Hendrix standard "
Hey Joe" that was a hit in Europe, rising to number one in Spain and France. DeVille said about "Hey Joe": "The song originally comes from the Texas-Mexico border area ... [T]hey call it Texico. I tried, instead of doing something that sounded like
Jimi Hendrix that would have been a cliché, I tried to take the song back to the way that it must originally have sounded, which would be with mariachis. It's classic, but it's classic with a little twist. A little different. I put a bit of
pachuco Canal Street slang talking. I added a couple of verses of my own."
Backstreets of Desire was released in the United States in 1994 on
Rhino Record's Forward label.
Continued success in Europe In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett, who proved to be an astute business manager. On the strength of his success touring and selling albums in Europe, they bought a horse farm,
Casa de Sueños, in
Picayune, Mississippi and began living there as well as at their apartment and studio in the
French Quarter of
New Orleans. DeVille told an interviewer in 1996: "I finally got the plantation ... I just bought this house and . It looks a little bit like
Graceland ... I got into horses since my wife is into them. We're raising Spanish and Portuguese bullfighting horses. The
bloodline is 2000 years old. She's into
breeding, but I just love riding. I've also got five dogs, four cats and a partridge in a pear tree."
Big Easy Fantasy presents live recordings of the
Mink DeVille Band playing with
New Orleans legends
Eddie Bo and
The Wild Magnolias and remixes from the
Victory Mixture sessions. DeVille said, "I was pissed off and I didn't have a record deal for a few years. At the time I didn't want one. I was getting very gun-shy about labels. I was performing in Europe and I was doing great without one. When you get to that stage in your mind, they all start coming around. It's pretty strange the way that happens".
Loup Garou featured a duet with
Brenda Lee; DeVille said: "She didn't know who the hell I was. I just called her up, played the song for her, and she loved it. She had her business people check me out, and they reported that I was big in Europe and had been recording for twenty years. So I flew to Nashville [to record with her] ... That's got to go down in my book as one of the most memorable experiences in my career." Before moving to the Southwest in 2000, DeVille recorded
Horse of a Different Color in
Memphis. The 1999 album, produced by
Jim Dickinson, includes a
chain-gang song, a
cover of
Fred McDowell's "Going over the Hill," and a cover of
Andre Williams's "Bacon Fat".
Allmusic said about the album, "Simply put, no one has this range or depth in interpreting not only styles, but also the poetics of virtually any set of lyrics. DeVille makes everything he sings believable. 'Horse of a Different Color' is the most consistent and brilliant recording of Willy DeVille's long career."
Horse of a Different Color was the first Willy DeVille album since 1987's
Miracle to be released simultaneously in Europe and the United States. His previous five albums had been released first in Europe and picked up later, if they were picked up at all, by American record labels.
Epiphany in the Southwest By 2000, DeVille had cured his two-decades-long addiction to heroin. He relocated to
Cerrillos Hills, New Mexico, where he produced and played on an album,
Blue Love Monkey, with Rick Nafey, a friend from his youth in Connecticut who had played in DeVille's first band, Billy & the Kids, as well as The Royal Pythons. In New Mexico, DeVille's wife Lisa committed suicide by hanging; DeVille discovered her body. He said: I got in a car accident because I got crazy. I think I was somewhat taunting death because somebody who I loved very much died. And I found them. That's what that lyric in that song means ("she hurts me still since I cut her down" [from "Downside of Town" on
Crow Jane Alley]). I cut her down. Next thing you know the police show up, I was in tears ... I was in love with another woman and we were going through some hard times, and I got in the car and I wanted to go off the cliff. I was in the mountains in New Mexico ... They came right around the corner head on. You know how big a
Dodge Ram truck is? I broke my arm in three places and my knee went into the dash board ... It was bone to bone ... I was on crutches and on a cane for about three years and I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. I was fucked up. I was ready for the scrapheap. , Italy, in 2007 "I guess I was testing the waters to see if I would live through it", DeVille told another interviewer. "It was a foolish, foolish thing to do." For the next five years, DeVille walked with a cane and performed sitting on a barstool, until he had
hip replacement surgery in 2006. DeVille's stay in the
Southwest awakened his interest in his Native American heritage. On the cover of his next album, 2002's
Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin, recorded to celebrate his 25 years' of performing, DeVille wore long hair. He began wearing Native American clothing and jewelry on stage. In 2004, DeVille returned to Los Angeles to record
Crow Jane Alley, his third album with producer John Philip Shenale. The album continued his explorations of his Spanish-Americana sound and featured many prominent Los Angeles Latino musicians. On the cover, DeVille wore a Native American headdress and breastplate. Richard Marcus said of the album,
"Crow Jane Alley is the work of an artist who after thirty plus years in the business still has the ability to surprise and delight his listeners. Listening to this disc only confirms that Willy DeVille is one of the greats who have been ignored for too long."
Return to New York City After living for 15 years in New Orleans and the Southwest, DeVille returned to New York City in 2003, where he took up residence with Nina Lagerwall, his third wife. He continued touring Europe, usually playing music festivals in the summer. On
Mardi Gras of 2008,
Pistola, DeVille's sixteenth album, was released.
Independent Music said about the album: "(Willy DeVille) has never been more artistically potent than on
Pistola, confronting the demons of his past with an impressive lyrical honesty and unexpectedly diverse musical imagination." In 2023, the film
Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations Of Willy DeVille by director Larry Locke premiered. ==Personal life==